


Stealing Home

by Susan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Susan/pseuds/Susan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean watches Ben play baseball and makes a decision.<br/>Coda to 99 Problems</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stealing Home

It only takes Dean fifteen minutes to find the baseball field. Another two to pick out Ben from the gaggle of gangly boys in pale uniforms. He’s taller than Dean remembers, but the kick of familiarity is still there. 

Ben has one foot on third base and the other extended towards home plate. The kid playing third keeps trying to edge Ben’s foot off the bag, but it doesn’t budge. Dean wonders if the kid ever heard of a safe lead. A cushion. Those few inches off the bag, closer to home, but not far enough to get picked off. The pitcher, at least six inches taller than Ben, tries to lure him down the line with a couple of soft throws to the third baseman, but, when he almost heaves the ball into the stands instead, the coach signals from the bench and the pitcher brings the ball to his chest, this time ignoring Ben, who hasn’t moved a toe.

But the minute the pitcher goes into his wind-up and kicks his leg towards the batter, Ben takes off towards home. Dean hears a chorus of groans from the stands – there’s no way in hell he’s going to make it before the ball does and everyone knows it. 

And then Dean’s back watching Sam again – the summer Sam was nine and they lived for two months in a rented house in a town in Maine, up near the Canadian border. John had gotten himself torn up pretty bad hunting a bear that wasn’t really a bear at all. More like a cross between Sasquatch and Yogi Bear. If Yogi had smoked crack. 

After two days, John checked himself out of the hospital in Bangor, pointed the boys toward the Impala and tossed the keys at Dean. “Find us a nice quiet town with a house to rent for a couple weeks. And no speeding. I’m not up to explaining to any cops why I let my kid drive.” John eased into the back seat, swallowed a handful of painkillers, and fell asleep.

Dean found a house two blocks from the beach in a town called Goose Rocks. Sam told the lady at the rental agency that they needed it for the whole season – two months – and gave her a two hundred dollar deposit from the torn envelope he carried everywhere. If she wondered why a nine year old kid was filling out the paperwork, she didn’t ask. Probably had something to do with the way Sam acted around women. Part kid, part puppy dog. They all wanted to take care of him. 

Dean and Sam walked back to the car. “Dad said two weeks, Sammy. Not two months. You’re such a retard.” 

“No way Dad’s going to be better in two weeks. He can hardly stand up straight. Plus I think he has brain damage.”

Dean turned and stepped in front of Sam, arms crossed. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“He let you drive, didn’t he?” Sam laughed and ran around Dean.

 

Sam was right, his father’s body needed more than a couple weeks to heal. John spent every morning sleeping and every afternoon rocking on the porch of the small, shingled house nursing a tumbler full of bourbon and a grudge against every monster that ever got away. At night, he’d scribble in his journal and cut out headlines from the newspapers Dean brought home from town.

 

Dean hated that summer. The ocean was 60 degrees of ball-shriveling cold, even on the hottest days. None of the stores in town would sell him smokes or beer, and his father was meaner than cat shit. John hated being stuck in one place as much as Dean did. 

It was the best summer of Sam’s life. At least that’s what he told Dean during a drunken game of Best and Worst years later . . .

“Best witch,” Sam said, draining the can of Budweiser.

“Oxymoron,” Dean countered. “How about best pizza?”

“Lincoln City, Oregon. Remember those two lesb—”

Dean grinned. “Yep. Worst pizza?”

“School cafeteria – Muncie, Indiana. Ketchup does not belong on pizza.” Sam popped open two more cans, and handed one to Dean.

Dean took a long drink. Burped. “Best summer?”

“Goose Rocks, Maine, I think I was nine, maybe ten. Remember Dad was in a car accident . . .”

“You were nine. Going on five. And it wasn’t a car accident, retard. More of a hunting accident.”

“No shit.” Sam shook his head and Dean could see him trying to insert the truth of his father’s injuries into what he remembered. “Well, it was great. We went swimming in the ocean every day . . .”

“Which explains why your balls are so small. Water was fucking freezing.”

“I joined the town library. They had every single Hardy Boys book . . .”

“And not one copy of Playboy.”

“And I played Little League, remember? Third base.” 

“I remember. Your team sucked. The Goose Eggs, right?”

“The Tigers, asshole. God, I loved that summer. We ate lunch at the kitchen table everyday. It was like –”

“– Norman fucking Rockwell. I get it.” He debated whether to tell Sam he was only trying to get something in his father’s stomach before John had his first glass of bourbon. 

“You came to every game, Dean. I remember that. You were easy to spot – you were the only parent – brother – in a leather jacket. In July. You’d stand behind the fence and watch me play. Call the other kids names.” He smiled.

“I’m always watching, Sammy.” 

 

Before Ben is called out, Dean turns away from the fence and walks back to the car. Kid would’ve been fine if he’d taken his foot off the bag, gotten a head start. That’s all anyone ever needed, a head start.

In the car later, Dean calls Castiel. Tells him to set up the meet with Michael. Dean names a small town in Maine, an hour outside of Bangor. He figures that 's as good a place as any for the apocalypse to begin. 

That’s when Dean knows for sure he’s going through with this. Stealing home. Until that moment, Dean had kept his foot on the bag, his options open, always watching and waiting for someone else to make the first move. 

He was done watching.


End file.
